Archive for the 'Syria' Category

GENEVA, July 22 – The UN’s 54-nation Economic and Social Council singled out Israel as the only violator of economic and social rights in the world, by a resolution adopted on Monday by a majority of 42 states including all EU members.

Only Australia and the U.S. opposed, with abstentions by Honduras and Panama. Eight countries were absent.

The text excoriates Israel for such crimes as “destruction of homes and properties, economic institutions and agricultural lands and orchards in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, as well as in the occupied Syrian Golan”; of the “exploitation of natural resources”; and of “the dumping of all kinds of waste materials in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan, which gravely threaten their natural resources.”

The EU-backed resolution mentions Hamas 0 times.

Syria was mentioned 13 times — but only to condemn Israel for alleged violations against “the Syrian citizens of the occupied Syrian Golan” whose family members reside in “their mother homeland, the Syrian Arab Republic.” The murderous regime of Bashar al-Assad is not condemned or even mentioned once.

No other country is singled out for condemnation at this year’s ECOSOC’s annual session.

After the introduction of the resolution by South Africa, the Syrian Ambassador took the floor and accused Israel of facilitating terrorist attacks against Syrian cities and civilians. Assad’s envoy condemned the Jewish state for “destroying the soil of the Golan, exploiting its resources, burning its products and other racist policies.”

Syria told a UN Committee that women’s rights in the country are excellent and rapes never happen.

On Friday, July 4, the UN’s Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) reviewed women’s rights in Syria. Syria, among the 188 States that are subjected to the scrutiny of the Convention, is required to submit regular reports to the 23 independent experts to evaluate the implementation of the Convention in the country.

The five hour session began with a presentation of a report from Ms. Kinda Al-Shammat, the Syrian Minister of Social Affairs, highlighting the actions taken by the Syrian government to combat harmful stereotypes, illiteracy, lack of support for rape victims, and other forms of discrimination against women.

However, the report failed to acknowledge any fault among the Syrian government itself. In a 2012 report, Human Rights Watch shared the story of witnesses and victims who testified to the sexual abuse of women and girls as young as 12 at the hands of the military and other pro-government forces during home raids. Similarly, a 2012 report from the BBC quoted a woman formerly held in a military detention center in Damascus who described the “daily rape” committed against girls while other girls were forced to look on. At the 2012 Geneva Summit, Hadeel Kouki described unspeakable violations of women’s rights in the country.

Testimony before the UN Human Rights Council, delivered by UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer, 18 June 2014, during the Interactive Dialogue with the UNHRC Commission of Inquiry on Syria.

Mr. President, what the Commission of Inquiry has just described is a living hell. Faced with continuing reports of Syria’s mass murder, torture, rape, and gassing of civilians by chemical weapons, how is the United Nations responding?

With notable exceptions, this inquiry being one, the UN’s policy toward Syria can be described in three words: business as usual.

Consider the following. In November 2011, well into Syria’s atrocities, UNESCO elected the Syrian regime—unanimously—to its human rights committee.

I ask the commission: what message did the UN send, when—up until only a few months ago—it allowed the Assad regime to sit as a judge of petitions submitted by human rights victims from around the world?

But Mr. President, it didn’t stop there. On February 20th of this year, as Syria’s Juhayna news trumpeted with glee, that country, that mass murdering regime, was “unanimously re-elected as Rapporteur of the UN Special Committee on Decolonization.”

UN Watch welcomes the following statements by two UN rights experts concerning Syria’s war crimes. We continue to urge outgoing UN Right to Food expert Olivier De Schutter to end his silence on Syria’s use of hunger as a weapon of war.The UN press release follows.

Syria: Violation of the right to water in Aleppo unacceptable, say UN experts

GENEVA (16 May 2014) – “Interference with water supplies even in the context of an ongoing conflict is entirely unacceptable warned today two UN experts* on the rights to water and sanitation, and to health, expressing concern that “large numbers of residents of the city of Aleppo have been forced to use non-potable water, making many ill.”

“Depriving people of their right to access safe water, not only denies them a basic and fundamental human right, but also an essential element to support life and health,” stressed the experts. They added that “if deliberate, the targeting of a civilian population to deprive it of essential supplies such as water is a matter of very serious concern, and a clear breach of both international humanitarian and human rights law which binds all parties.” Continue reading ‘Syria: Violation of the right to water in Aleppo unacceptable, say UN experts ‘

Israel’s Peace Now, represented by campaigns manager Yaniv Shacham, delivered a speech today at an international conference in Quito, Ecuador, that claims to be about peace, but which is in fact organized by a rabidly anti-Israel UN committee dominated by Syria’s Assad regime and other like-minded murderous, misogynistic and homophobic dictatorships.

Is Peace Now unaware that this latest “UN International Meeting on the Question of Palestine,” taking place today and tomorrow under the innocuous-sounding theme of “Engaging for peace – the International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People,” is run by the UN’s Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, whose member and observer states include the mass-murdering Syrian Arab Republic, slave-holding Mauritania, women-hating Saudi Arabia, along with tyrannies large and small such as China, Belarus, Cuba, Algeria and the Lao People’s Democratic Republic?

Is Peace Now unaware that its host committee was established in 1975 on the same day as the infamous Zionism is Racism resolution, which Kofi Annan has described as the low point of the UN’s record on anti-Semitism? That it promotes organizations like the one headed by notorious anti-Semite Mahathir Mohamad?

Is Peace Now unaware that its host committee’s year-round reports, meetings, conferences, and publications incite to hatred against Israel? That while claiming to care about human rights, its host has never once condemned the murder of Israeli civilians by rockets, bus bombings or stabbings, and instead legitimizes violence and terrorism?

Why is Peace Now legitimizing a poisonous propaganda exercise run by a syndicate of murderers and rapists?

UN Watch welcomes the unanimous adoption today of a UNSC resolution strongly condemning human rights violations in Syria, particularly those committed by the Syrian regime. The full text is provided below.

Recalling its resolutions 2042 (2012), 2043 (2012) and 2118 (2013), and its Presidential Statements of 3 August 2011, 21 March 2012, 5 April 2012 and 2 October 2013,

Reaffirming its strong commitment to the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Syria, and to the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations,

Being appalled at the unacceptable and escalating level of violence and the death of well over 100,000 people in Syria, including over 10,000 children, as reported by the UN Secretary-General and the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict,

Expressing grave alarm at the significant and rapid deterioration of the humanitarian situation in Syria, in particular the dire situation of hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped in besieged areas, most of whom are besieged by the Syrian armed forces and some by opposition groups, as well as the dire situation of over 3 million people in hard-to-reach areas, and deploring the difficulties in providing, and the failure to provide, access for the humanitarian assistance to all civilians in need inside Syria,

Emphasizing the need to respect the UN guiding principles of humanitarian emergency assistance and stressing the importance of such assistance being delivered on the basis of need, devoid of any political prejudices and aims, commending the efforts of the United Nations and all humanitarian and medical personnel in Syria and in neighbouring countries, and condemning all acts or threats of violence against United Nations staff and humanitarian actors, which have resulted in the death, injury and detention of many humanitarian personnel, Continue reading ‘Full text: UN Security Council Resolution 2139′

I thank the Special Rapporteur on safe drinking water for her reports on Kiribati and Tuvalu, whose challenges are worthy of international support.

Madam Rapporteur, we would like to ask if you would also be prepared to examine the humanitarian catastrophe now taking place in Syria.

According to UNICEF, 10 million people — close to half the population — lack secure access to safe water. Supplies of chlorine have fallen dangerously low, increasing tap water contamination. Access to sanitation and hygiene is deteriorating, threatening the health of much of the population.

Madam Rapporteur, UNICEF also reports that children are at particular risk of contracting diarrhoea and other water-borne diseases. Power cuts, fuel shortages and damage to infrastructure cause worsening water shortages. In al-Qusayr, water was completely cut off in April when pro-government Hezbollah fighters took control of the local water plant.

Madam Rapporteur, as the expert on the Right to Water and Sanitation, is there any reason why the devastating water crisis in Syria is not in your report this year, nor in any of your previous reports? Have you requested to visit Syria, or nearby countries to hear testimony from refugees?

I see on your UN website that in the past few years you have issued 54 statements. Of these, only one dealt with Syria — a joint statement from two and a half years ago, which you signed with 6 other experts.

Madam Rapporteur, we appreciate your reports on the islands of Kiribati and Tuvalu. At the same time, one cannot help but note that the island of Kiribati has one of the smallest populations in the world —100,000 people. Tuvalu has even less: a total population of 10,000.

By any measure, Madam Rapporteur, these are among the tiniest places on the faces of the earth.

I therefore wish to ask you: by what logic and methodology should we be devoting the scarce and limited time and attention of this world body to the climate change challenges of Kiribati and Tuvalu—genuine and important as they are—instead of the life-and-death humanitarian crisis that is affecting the water, sanitation and health of millions of victims across Syria, and of millions of Syrian refugees in surrounding countries?

Three years into the massacre of over 100,000 people, why is it that we have heard only a handful of statements on Syria by all of this council’s human rights experts?

Three weeks after more than 1,000 people were gassed to death in Damascus, including 400 children, why has this Human Rights Council refused to convene a single emergency session or debate?

Will the Special Rapporteur on human rights and hazardous substances, from whom we just heard, consider addressing Syria’s stockpile of Sarin gas?

I don’t say this council is doing nothing. I know there will be a discussion on Monday, which was scheduled months ago. But where is the sense of urgency? Where is the outrage?

Former U.S. Attorney-General Ramsey Clark, who morphed into a dictator-loving nutjob decades ago, will be one of the keynote speakers at a propaganda event this afternoon at the UN Human Rights Council, organized by front groups for Syria’s Assad regime such as the “Union of Arab Jurists.”

Yesterday the UNHRC was the venue for another pro-Assad side event headlined by Alfred de Zayas, a UNHRC official who is a hero to Holocaust deniers, and featuring Curtis Doebbler, a former lawyer for Saddam Hussein who heads the Qaddafi-created “North South XXI” group that has NGO observer credentials at the UN.

The saddest part of the story is that many of these people are befriended and legitimized by elements of the human rights community.

Testimony before the United Nations Human Rights Council, delivered by UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer on 10 September 2013.

Madam President,

The purpose of this council is to protect human rights victims and respond to urgent situations.

Yet as we meet here today, three weeks have passed since Syria gassed to death hundreds of its own men, women, and children — and still the council closes its eyes, refusing our call for an emergency session.

The UN’s Economic and Social Council today adopted a resolution on human rights and humanitarian law that mentioned Syria 15 times. Except that Syria’s government was nowhere mentioned or criticized. The resolution was against Israel.

A review of the resolutions list of ECOSOC’s current 2013 annual session shows that Israel was the only country in the world to be the object of a condemnatory resolution — gross abusers like Syria, North Korea, Iran, Egypt, China, Russia, Cuba and Saudi Arabia were all given a free pass . (The only other resolution focused on a specific country concerned Haiti, but this was a non-critical text about foreign aid co-sponsored by Haiti itself.)

Only the US and Canada opposed the resolution, which was adopted 43 to 2, with 1 abstention (Haiti).

In his speech before the vote, the Palestinian delegate alleged “racism and colonization,” saying that “occupation is the ugliest form of racism and terrorism,” and “the State of Israel is a state of terror, settlers are terror, military are terror.”

Syria for its part accused Israel of “stealing historical artifacts to lie about [the] history” of the Golan, and “imposing Hebrew on students.”

Sadly, ECOSOC’s session was once again counter-productive, pushing the parties further apart instead of bridging their differences, damaging the UN’s credibility, and making it party to the conflict instead of a neutral mediator.

Today, the UN Human Rights Council met to discuss the recent atrocities in Syria. The “Urgent debate on Human Rights in the Syrian Arab Republic” stood out as one of the first times that Hezbollah was condemned for the bloodshed in Syria. In fact, the United States specifically condemned Hezbollah’s role in the massacre, while Australia expressed concern for Hezbollah’s recent involvement, and Canada stated that Hezbollah plays a destructive role in a campaign of violence. Overwhelmingly, many states, including the European Union urged the Security Council to refer the case to the International Criminal Court, while virtually all states called for a political, rather than military, solution.

However, not all countries were so adamant about attributing Syria’s ongoing violence to Hezbollah, or the Assad regime. Syria itself resorted to finger pointing and denial when attempting to shift the blame away from themselves, while Russia, Cuba, Ecuador, China, Iran, and North Korea, among others, denounced the ongoing debate. Continue reading ‘Urgent Debate on Syria at the Human Rights Council’

GENEVA, May 23 – The annual assembly of the UN’s World Health Organization adopted its only country-specific resolution yesterday by condemning Israel, and ordering “health-related technical assistance” to “the Syrian population in the occupied Syrian Golan” — yet said nothing about the Syrian population being slaughtered in Syria. See the vote count at bottom.

In a written statement featured on yesterday’s WHO agenda, Syria demanded urgent action on “inhuman Israeli practices” that target “the health of Syrian citizens.” Click here for documents.

Observers of the world body in Geneva said the annual hypocrisy reached a new low this year.

“To see the Assad regime point the finger at Israel out of professed concern for the health of Syrians is, frankly, a sick joke,” said Hillel Neuer, exectuive director of the Geneva-based UN Watch, a non-governmental monitoring group accredited to the UN.

“They’ve slaughtered 80,000 of their own people, and are now busy destroying the lives of millions more. The real question is this: Why is the UN allowing mass murderers to deflect attention from their crimes by scapegoating democracies?”

GENEVA, May 22 – The annual assembly of the UN’s World Health Organization adopted its only country-specific resolution yesterday by condemning Israel, and ordering “health-related technical assistance” to “the Syrian population in the occupied Syrian Golan” — yet said nothing about the Syrian population being slaughtered in Syria. See the vote count at bottom.

The condemnation came after a special debate that criticized Israel for the health situation “in the occupied Palestinian territories and occupied Syrian Golan,” yet turned a blind eye to the bloodbath in Syria that has already killed 80,000 and afflicted the health situation of millions.

Of the 25 items on the agenda of the annual Geneva assembly of the World Health Organization, all but one address global themes such as diseases, health regulations, and pandemics.

We cannot also forget the Israeli partnership with the Salafi, Takfiri and terrorist groups, and allowing those groups to cross the separation line in occupied Syrian Golan, and treating their wounded in Israeli hospitals.

This week the UN commemorates the horrific Rwandan Genocide. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message is clear: “Collectively, we must go beyond words and effectively safeguard people at risk.” Furthermore, he took the opportunity to commend the “all too few” who defended their fellow humans. Which begs the question, who is defending the Syrian people?

Ban Ki-moon was silent at meeting that named Assad Rapporteur of Decolonization Committee

GENEVA, February 26, 2013 – UN Watch today called on Ban Ki-moon, US Ambassador Susan Rice and EU representatives to condemn the world body’s “revolting and absurd” decision to unanimously re-elect the Assad regime to a senior post on a decolonization committee charged with upholding fundamental human rights in opposing the “subjugation, domination and exploitation” of peoples — a propaganda victory now being trumpeted by Syria’s state-funded SANA news agency.

“It is incomprehensible for the UN to say that Syria has killed at least 70,000 of its own people and to then hand this gift of false legitimacy to the mass murderer Bashar al-Assad,” said Hillel Neuer, director of the Geneva-based human rights group UN Watch.

If a government has violated your freedom of speech, opinion, thought, conscience, assembly or association, you can file a complaint with the human rights committee of UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

As more than 27,000 civilians have been killed in the conflict in Syria, the Human Rights Council has tasked the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to prepare a report on Israeli violations in the Golan.

In its submission to the OHCHR, the Assad regime claims that “in order to guarantee sustainable stability and security in the Middle East region, adequate measures must be taken to ensure the implementation of all relevant international resolutions, including Human Rights Council resolutions, without discrimination or selectivity.” But of course, the blame for the lack of stability and security has to be put on Israel and not on its own abuses and disrespect of human rights treaties.

According to the Assad regime, Israel is to blame for protecting its border, when Syria provocatively sent busloads of “protesters,” past Syrian and U.N. outposts, right to the front lines, undisturbed by the Syrian authorities present.

“Israeli occupation forces carried out a brutal massacre in which they fired live bullets at peaceful unarmed protesters (Syrians and Palestinians) on the Syrian side of the ceasefire line in the occupied Syrian Golan, resulting in 23 dead and 350 injured.”

“Israeli occupation forces committed a similar crime in which they used live ammunition to disperse peaceful protesters, leading to 15 deaths and scores of injuries.”

“The decision of the Israeli Government, in June 2011, to build an apartheid separation wall in the occupied Syrian Golan, east of Majdal al-Shams, on the pretext of preventing Palestinians and Syrians from crossing the ceasefire line and reaching the occupied town of Majdal al-Shams.”

U.S. & Britain must uphold pledge to demand UNESCO expulsion of Assad regime

Rights group: “Syria’s membership is a lingering stainupon the reputation of the U.N. as a whole”

GENEVA, Aug. 16 – Yesterday’s suspension of Syria from the 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation creates a new window of opportunity for a top U.N. human rights committee to cancel its “shameful” November election of the Bashar al-Assad regime, said UN Watch, a Geneva-based human rights organization which heads a campaign of 55 parliamentarians, human rights and religious groups calling for Syria’s expulsion.

As Syrians continue to be slaughtered, the U.N. is once again too busy condemning Israel to respond to those pleading for help in Aleppo and elsewhere.

The world body’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the principal organ under the U.N. Charter tasked with addressing human rights and fundamental freedoms, has just concluded its annual session by turning a blind eye to the ongoing massacres by the Assad regime. Instead, a list of all its resolutions for the entire world shows that ECOSOC condemned only one single country: Israel. Two resolutions were adopted against Israel, and one report.

How is it that the Assad regime, led by father and son, was able to retain the international legitimacy needed to retain power over 42 years, despite perpetrating systematic brutality, such as the killing of an estimated 20,000 citizens of Hama in February 1982, and being listed as a leading state sponsor of terrorism?

1. On 30 June 2012, the Secretaries-General of the United Nations and the League of Arab States, the Foreign Ministers of China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States, Turkey, Iraq (Chair of the Summit of the League of Arab States), Kuwait (Chair of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the League of Arab States) and Qatar (Chair of the Arab Follow-up Committee on Syria of the League of Arab States), and the European Union High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy met at the United Nations Office at Geneva as the Action Group for Syria, chaired by the Joint Special Envoy of the United Nations and the League of Arab States for Syria.

2. Action Group members came together out of grave alarm at the situation in Syria. They strongly condemn the continued and escalating killing, destruction and human rights abuses. They are deeply concerned at the failure to protect civilians, the intensification of the violence, the potential for even deeper conflict in the country, and the regional dimensions of the problem. The unacceptable nature and magnitude of the crisis demands a common position and joint international action. Continue reading ‘Full text: Action Group for Syria – Final Communiqué’

Following is the final version of the UN Human Rights Council resolution on the massacre in Syria, adopted today at an emergency session. The vote was 41 in favor, 3 against (Russia, China, Cuba), 2 abstain (Ecuador, Uganda), and Philippines absent.

S-19/… The deteriorating situation of human rights in the Syrian Arab Republic, and the recent killings in El-Houleh

The Human Rights Council,

Recalling General Assembly resolutions 66/176 of 19 December 2011 and 66/253 of 16 February 2012, Human Rights Council resolutions S-16/1 of 29 April 2011, S-17/1 of 22 August 2011, S-18/1 of 2 December 2011, 19/1 of 1 March 2012 and 19/22 of 23 March 2012, and Security Council resolutions 2042 (2012) of 14 April 2012 and 2043 (2012) of 21 April 2012,

Condemning the killings, confirmed by United Nations observers, of dozens of men, women and children and the wounding of hundreds more in the village of El-Houleh, near Homs, in attacks that involved the wanton killing of civilians by shooting at close range and by severe physical abuse by pro-regime elements and a series of Government artillery and tank shellings of a residential neighbourhood, and reiterating that all violence in all its forms by all parties must cease,

Recalling that the statement made by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on 27 May 2012 that the atrocities in El-Houleh may amount to crimes against humanity and noting her repeated encouragement to the Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court,

Reaffirming its strong commitment to the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic and to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations,

GENEVA, June 1 – Today’s UN Human Rights Council emergency session on Syria should call for a reversal of the recent election of the Assad regime to a UN human rights committee, a Geneva-based human rights organization will tell the 47-nation body this afternoon on behalf of 55 NGOs and MPs, in a speech to be delivered by 20-year-old student Hadil Kouki, a Syrian torture victim and recent exile. (SEE HER UN SPEECH BELOW)

UN Watch has obtained a copy of the draft resolution being circulated for tomorrow’s UN Human Rights Council emergency session on the massacre in Syria:

Draft Resolution on the human rights situation in Syria and the recent killings in El-Houleh

30 May 2012

Recalling General Assembly resolutions 66/176 of 19 December 2011 and 66/253 of 16 February 2012, as well as Human Rights Council resolutions S-16/1 of 29 April 2011, S-17/1 of 22 August 2011, S-18/1 of 2 December 2011, 19/1 of 1 March 2012 and 19/22 of … and Security Council resolutions 2042 (2012) and 2043 (2012),

Deploring the killings, confirmed by United Nations observers, of dozens of men, women and children and the wounding of hundreds more in the village of El-Houleh, near Homs, in attacks that involved a series of Government artillery and tank shellings of a residential neighborhood,

1. Condemns in the strongest possible terms such an outrageous use of force against the civilian population which constitutes a violation of applicable international law and of the commitment of the Syrian Government under the United Nations Security Council Resolutions 2042 (2012) and 2043 (2012) to cease violence in all its forms, including the cessation of use of heavy weapons in population centres; Continue reading ‘Text of draft UN resolution for tomorrow’s emergency session on Syrian massacre’

The annual World Health Assemby met in Geneva last week to assess the world’s health situation, adopt measures and exchange best practices. As is customary with all UN bodies, only one resolution was adopted against a particular country and that country was Israel.

With a vote of 56 in favor, 6 against (Israel, United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Micronesia) and 48 abstantions (including all of the EU), the WHA adopted a resolution on “the health conditions in the occupied Palestinian territory including east Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan.”

Of course, there was no resolution on any other health emergency around the world, let alone in Syria, where dozens of innocent civilians are brutally murdered and denied basic healthcare every day for many months now. Unless of course, they live in the Golan, where Israel can be blamed.